Commencement Address
by Bookbug Taz
Summary: When Pepper was asked to deliver the Commencement address at Morgan's graduation, she looked for inspiration on what to say and found it from the last person she expected.


"Graduates, faculty, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present our Commencement speaker - Mrs. Pepper Potts-Stark!"

The audience burst into applause as Pepper rose to her feet, picked up the briefcase tucked under her chair and approached the lectern. She could see the friendly nudges that her daughter's friends were giving her and watched as Morgan let out a rueful smirk while her eyes danced with mirth.

They had talked a few months ago when Pepper had first been approached about giving the address. Pepper, not wanting to do it if it meant embarrassment for her daughter; Morgan had just laughed and informed her that as soon as she was old enough to understand why everyone knew her mother and then, later on, herself, she had known who was going to be giving her commencement address.

"I mean, really Mom. Who else were they going to get to do it!" After promising to not embarrass her daughter... "well, not too much anyway!" Pepper had accepted and now as she stood at the lectern and looked out on the sea of faces, she was glad she had accepted the honor so she was able to be front and center at this milestone in her daughter's life.

"Graduates. It is my honour to be addressing you today as you stand at the edge of the rest of your life, ready for your next step into the future. As I was thinking about what to say to you today, I couldn't help but do some research into what one usually says at these moments." Morgan and her friends shared smiles, nudges and eye rolls as they knew very well that Pepper always wanted to be as prepared as possible and had passed that particular trait onto her daughter.

"As I was searching for the perfect words to say. I came across something that..." Pepper paused before continuing. "That I hadn't ever seen before, that I hadn't known even existed." In the audience, Morgan frowned as she could see something painful behind her mother's eyes. "It turns out, it was exactly what I wanted to say and said in a way that was far better than anything I could have put together and I would like to share that with you now."

She bent down, picked up the briefcase and placed it on the small table that had been placed on the stage. Morgan met her Mom's eyes with a concerned question before Pepper smiled apologetically and opened the case. Reaching inside, Pepper took a breath, steadied herself and then took the item from inside and placed it on the table.

The whole auditorium gasped as Iron Man's helmet was turned to look at them. A buzz of whispered voices, incredulous and excited started to fill the room. Morgan, however, couldn't take her eyes off the helmet... her Dad's helmet. Which she hadn't seen for a long time.

Just as the Dean was about to call order, Pepper spoke again. "Friday" The word and the subsequent answer was enough to silence the room again.

"Yes, Lady Boss."

Again, Pepper met her daughter's eyes as she said: "Play it."

Morgan gasped, hands leaping to her mouth and tears springing into her eyes as an image of her Dad was projected out of the helmet onto the stage in front of them. She had seen pictures and videos of Tony Stark, of course she had. She also had seen the last video he had made so many times she could quote it in her sleep. This was something new though. Hungry for a sight of the man she barely remembered, she leaned forward in her seat, tears already prickling her eyes. He looked... tired actually.

Pepper stood, still at the podium, tears in her eyes as she watched the hologram of her husband stand up and start to pace. The action was so familiar to her that she couldn't help but smile.

"Friday, what time is it?" Holographic Tony asked as he rubbed his hands through his hair and down his face.  
"2:14 am. You really should be asleep, Boss"  
"Yeah yeah yeah. This is what happens when you have visitors that come along and stir up a bunch of stuff that you thought you had buried. Stupid Cap and his stupid theories. Like it's a piece of cake to just knock something together that will essentially unravel all the threads of the universe, so we can find all six stones and then- hey presto! Undo everything. Easy!

"And if we did... if I could get it to work. What if it changed everything? I can't lose what I have - Pepper and Morgan" Holo-Tony looked off to the side and, although Pepper knew that in the layout of the cabin he would have been looking towards the stairs, here and now, he was looking at her and she couldn't hold back a tear from sliding down her face.

"I can't lose them - I can't believe I even have them in the first place. What if something went wrong and it meant that I missed this. Any of this. I don't want to miss anything." Morgan gulped and gave up trying to hide her tears as her father continued his pacing.

"Morgan's first day at school, the first time she blows up the lab, first boyfriend.. actually that would be fine to miss." A laugh went round the graduates again. "Seeing her as a teenager. Graduating."

He stopped pacing and stood looking thoughtful. A flash of 'classic Tony Stark' infused his body. "I bet I'd get asked to speak at her commencement" He smirked and the flash disappeared as he laughed and shook his head. "Actually, I wonder how long it would be before calmer heads prevailed, they rescinded their offer and asked Pepper to speak instead." This time a laugh went through the faculty with some of the senior figures shooting knowing smiles at each other.

Holo-Tony sat down, a sofa arm appearing in the hologram as he perched on it. "What would I say anyway?! I hardly think I am a good role model for impressionable graduates. My life hasn't been exactly normal. Come to think of it, I think I was drunk at my commencement - a fact my father was definitely not happy about!" An admiring chuckle went through the graduates.

"I sometimes wonder if I would have achieved what I have if I'd had a different start in life. If I hadn't been my father's son..." Holo-Tony trailed off his eyes lost in thought. His eyes stared off into the distance out over a lake that he would later watch his daughter learn to swim in but here and now, his gaze swept out over the audience that included that same daughter.

He shook himself and his gaze sharpened again "Nah. I would still have done everything. I'm too pig-headed and stubborn to not get what I wanted. Can't change that. Who we are is hardwired into us, the building blocks are already there. What we go through and the people we meet have some influence on us, sure; but no one really changes. Pepper has said, numerous times, that she has given up trying to change me. She has ... knocked some of the rough corners off though." Another smile and look had the watching Pepper's heart aching.

"Quite a few things have knocked off a couple of corners both good and bad. Maybe that's what I would say..." he straightened as if standing and giving a lecture. "You have inside you a block of marble that is made up of everything that makes you you. Your values, your strengths, your abilities, your ..." his hand gestured as his mind reached for the word, "you-ness. And as you go through life you start to mold and chisel that marble. Your parents, your friends, your teachers, your life, all influences you and makes changes to your inner marble block. Sometimes the changes are positive and your sculpture grows more beautiful. Sometimes you go through something horrible and then..." the distant gaze came back as he looked out on a desert landscape, a Siberian bunker, a distant planet covered in dust.

"Then it's up to you how you carve your sculpture. Will you make the strike that breaks it into pieces? Will you carve the sculpture into something horrendous that will bring horror to those who see it, or will you use that pain and struggle to make your sculpture better. It's all on you. It's on all of us to keep trying, to take the fun and the joy and the shit that life gives us and make it something worthwhile."

A creak in the audio causes Holo-Tony to turn sharply. Whatever he sees, relaxes him and a soft smile creeps over his face. "What are you doing there?"

A new voice enters the audio and Pepper's eyes find her daughter's rapt gaze in the audience as her five year old self says "I wanted some juice pops and I heard you talking. Who are you talking to, Daddy?"

Tony's smile gets wider as he walks over and picks up the little girl from the stairs and brings her to the mask and points at it. An "Ahhh" goes through the audience as heads swivel to find the grown-up Morgan who is far too busy alternately drinking in all the details and also trying to work out if she remembered this, to notice. "I'm talking to the future."

"The future?! You can do that?"

"You sure can! Say hello to the future."

The little girl beams in her Daddy's arms as she waves excitedly and says "Hello future!" She turns back to Tony. "Is this like time travel?"

Tony's eyes slide away from his daughter and the graduation hall could almost see the cogs in his head turning and the puzzle in his brain starting to shift. A sudden, almost lightbulb moment strikes his face as he says "Yes, exactly like time travel." He takes a breath and refocuses on his daughter who lets out a yawn. "Right now though, little miss, the only traveling you are going to do is back to bed!"

"But Daddy! The juice pops!" The protest is half silenced as she burrows into his shoulder.

"I'll make you a deal. You go to bed and I will make sure we have ice pops for breakfast."

Little Morgan laughs "What will Mommy say?"

Tony smiles as Holo-Pepper steps into view, unseen by the now almost asleep little girl. "Don't worry, I'm sure Mommy will be just fine about it."

Holo-Pepper smirks and rolls her eyes. "You two and your juice pops" She whispers, leaning over and placing a kiss on Morgan's head and Tony's cheek.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know that you aren't going to go back to sleep are you?" She smiled a rueful smile as Tony looked bashful. "I've seen too many of your lightbulb moment looks for you to hide them from me."

"I have a look?"

"You do." She paused and almost reluctantly asked, "You figured it out?"

Tony looked at her carefully before shrugging "The starting point at least." He sighed and hugged his now sound asleep daughter tight to him. "I don't want to lose this."

Pepper hugged the two of them and they kissed over their daughter's head. "I know you will do everything you can, not to let that happen.' She placed her hand on the side of his face. "Pass her here and go do your thing."

Tony smiled as he watched his wife and daughter disappear from the view of the hologram. Turning back, he again seemed to look over the audience who were all mesmerized by the intimate view they were seeing of the man that had saved the universe. Who had been larger than life when alive and who's reputation had only seemed to increase in death.

"You are always going to be who you are, you can't get away from that, no matter how much you sometimes want to. You just have to make sure you make yourself the best 'you' you can be."

He took one last look at the stairs and again seemed to meet Pepper's tear-filled eyes. He took in a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair and seemed to steel himself.

"Right," he muttered as he leaned forward to stop the recording. "Time to save the world." As he reached toward where the helmet would have been recording, he looked at the camera and every single person in the room felt the eyes of Tony Stark pierce their soul. Morgan's heart was in her mouth and she couldn't look away.

As Holo-Tony faded away, Pepper stepped back to the podium.

"For many years, I had to follow Tony Stark and put out the fires that he left in his wake. This is one fire that shouldn't be put out. You have heard the challenge. Be the best 'you' you can be and let's, every single one of us, go out there and save the world.

"Thank you."


End file.
